Immortallium's Blog

Some Amazing Classic Anime Recommendations

Published December 9, 2021

It’s easy, just like any medium, to get distracted by new anime releases and to forget about many of the amazing anime that have been released throughout history. Therefore, I thought I might do something a little different than usual and recommend some of my favourite classic anime series and films. While I’m not going to try to make these classic anime recommendations obscure, I will be trying to recommend amazing titles that aren’t particularly obvious.

Starting this off, I’d like to bring particular attention to a series called “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”. Directed by Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, the series is loosely based on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and begins with Jean, a 14 year old French inventor, coming across an acrobat called Nadia who is being pursued by several villains for her mysterious blue necklace. The series has an incredible sense of wonder and has crisp animation, wonderful characters and numerous twists and turns. It would honestly probably be one of my favourite anime series of all time if it wasn’t for a dreadful filler arc that has become known as the “Island Arc“. Nonetheless, I’d enthusiastically recommend this series to anyone eager to find a new anime to watch.

An image of the character's of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. — Some of the cast of “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”.

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What’s The Difference Between A Great And Terrible Prequel?

Published December 6, 2021

I have recently been watching some of the more questionable in quality Don Bluth films in an effort to both say that I have seen them and to learn more about his change in style over time. One of these films was Bartok the Magnificent, a prequel to the 1997 film Anastasia, that follows Bartok, the minion of Rasputin in the original film. Watching Bartok the Magnificent, I observed that it was clearly a below average animated film but, more importantly to me, it was a terrible prequel. Realising the difference between the quality of the movie and its purpose as a prequel, I decided to take a look at what makes a good prequel and a bad one.

Having brought up Bartok the Magnificent, let’s begin by analysing this film. The structure of the film isn’t terrible even if it is very generic. Bartok is an entertainer who works with a bear called Zozi, voiced by Kelsey Grammer with the character being a clone of Fraser Crane. They visit Moscow and Bartok finds himself responsible for rescuing the child Tsar who has been kidnapped by Baba Yaga. He encounters Baba Yaga, must perform some tasks for her in return for the location of the Tsar and there is a twist, albeit a predictable one at that, near the end of the film. While not a good film in my humble opinion and it’s certainly not one that I could imagine myself rewatching in my spare time, there is some pleasant animation, the characters are voiced well and there are moments of entertainment from time to time.

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The History Of One Of The Greatest Game Developers, FromSoftware

Published December 2, 2021

I’ve recently started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the latest game released by FromSoftware, and, after a steep learning curve, I’ve been blown away by how incredible Sekiro is. I had doubts when I heard that Sekiro wasn’t an RPG like their Dark Souls series but I’ve been truly astounded by it’s quality and how fun it is. This, along with the hype for the upcoming Elden Ring, made me think that it might be interesting to take a look at the history of FromSoftware, a company that I consider to be one of the greatest game developers of all time!

For a company that took the gaming world by storm in the past 15 years, it might surprise you to learn that FromSoftware was originally founded in 1986 to develop software for businesses! Eventually, FromSoftware shifted to video game development and released their first game in 1994 for the PlayStation, King’s Field. A first-person RPG, King’s Field would go on to have three sequels and featured many mechanics that would go on to define their later games such as difficulty, exploration and abstract storytelling.

The cover for King’s Field, FromSoftware’s first video game.

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Why Are Some Manga Cancelled In English?

Published November 29, 2021

When I’m researching manga series to pick up and collect, one of the first things I check is to see if the entirety of the series has been released in English. More often than not, the series completed its English release and I’m able to continue looking into the manga to see if I want to collect it. However, there are times where I find that the English release was cut short and, in those situations, I am immediately put off from collecting the series since I won’t be able to finish the story. Knowing all this, the question becomes why are some manga cancelled in English?

The first and most obvious answer is simple, money. Even with the notoriously low pay in the manga translation industry, releasing manga in English is not cheap. Beyond translation costs, there is touch up to the artwork costs, editing costs, printing and distribution costs etc. This all adds up and can result in a series being unprofitable. Understandably, businesses don’t like to lose money and, rather than continuing to haemorrhage money, they might decide to just cancel the manga’s English release.

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Why Anime Is Sometimes Localised To Hide Their Country Of Origin

Published November 25, 2021

When I was a child, I ended up watching a lot of series that I would later discover were anime series. From Pokémon to Beyblades to Yu-Gi-Oh! to Medabots to many more, it’s surprising how much anime I watched back then. However, I was completely unaware that these shows that I enjoyed so much were from Japan! Why was I and so many others oblivious to this information? The answer is surprisingly straightforward, because the American licensors didn’t want you to know! Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at why anime is sometimes localised to hide their country of origin.

I should start off by clarifying that I will be looking at localisation when it comes to English language releases of these shows. Anime has been incredibly popular internationally for decades and it’s explosion in popularity in the English speaking world was actually later than many other countries. However, I’m quite unsure about how heavy-handed censorship and localisation were in these countries and, if you’re aware of how this was handled in particular countries, feel free to comment below.

Those aren’t donuts! Those are rice balls!

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Why I Love To Be Able To See Concept Art

Published November 22, 2021

There are a wide variety of extras that I love to get along with the media that I enjoy. From commentaries to behind the scenes information to appendixes, there is so much extra content that I love to see included with releases. However, an area that I would love to see more from would be concept art, an extra that I would consider to be highly underrated.

First, let’s discuss what concept art is. Concept art is artwork that is produced for a wide variety of creative mediums such as animation, graphic novels, video games, live-action media etc. These concept art will develop ideas for characters, settings, technology etc. and will tend to go through several iterations as feedback, both creative and practical, is received. Concept art can be used for a variety of purposes from advertising to refining the product itself to even seeking funding from investors.

Original concept art for Darth Maul which is drastically different to how he would later appear in the Star Wars franchise.

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Games for Windows Live And Its Cursed Legacy

Published November 18, 2021

I recently saw an article from PC Gamer that Fallout 3 had patched out Games for Windows Live on Steam. While not significant news for many, I would imagine many people these days don’t even know what Games for Windows Live was, it not only reminded me of the existence of Games for Windows Live but the many problems that its cursed legacy continues to produce in modern PC gaming.

I should first begin by explaining what Games for Windows Live was. Back in 2006, Microsoft launched a brand called “Games for Windows“, an initiative to regulate PC games more similarly to the console market and to increase accessibility. Examples of features that were included as part of this branding were easy installation, compatibility with 64-bit operating systems, supporting a wide variety of resolutions, support for Xbox controllers etc. Additionally, games that passed these criteria and were accepted into the program had Games for Windows branding across the top of their case in order to differentiate them from PC games that weren’t Games for Windows.

Observe the Games for Windows branding across the top of the box.

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Manga Remakes: Examples And Why They’re Rare

Published November 15, 2021

It is a fact that remakes are becoming increasingly common across numerous entertainment industries. From films to gaming to anime, it feels like remakes are becoming more and more prevalent, perhaps overwhelmingly so. However, it occurred to me the other day that there aren’t that many manga remakes. Therefore, I thought it might be worth looking at a few examples of manga remakes and why they’re so rare compared to other media.

Let’s start off by looking at a few examples. A notable example of a manga remake would be Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage. Written by the legendary Leiji Matsumoto, author of the original 1978 Space Pirate Captain Harlock, with the art handled by Kōichi Shimahoshi, Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage retells the story of the original manga while expanding on certain story elements and connecting more strongly with Leiji Matsumoto’s other series.

The volume 2 English language cover for Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage.

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The Unique, Stunning Experimental Anime Shorts Of Osamu Tezuka

Published November 11, 2021

I recently read The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime, a manga biography of the life of Osamu Tezuka, and found a particular aspect of his career especially fascinating. I was already quite familiar with his manga works, his anime offerings such as Animerama etc. but I was really surprised to learn how many anime shorts he produced over his career. These anime shorts were experimental, unique, stunning and I wanted to tell others about this incredible aspect of Osamu Tezuka.

In order to explain the production of his first experimental short, I have to discuss the state of anime at the time. In the early 1960s, the television industry was booming in Japan but TV anime was practically non-existent due to competition from American animation. Tezuka, however, believed in the potential of animation and was determined to develop animation both for television and short films that would push the boundaries of the medium. This resulted in the studio’s first projects being the Astro Boy television series, which I’ve spoken about before, and the experimental shorts “Tales of a Street Corner” and “Male”.

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The Important Animator Ralph Bakshi Part 2

Published November 8, 2021

Here is my continuation of “The Important Animator Ralph Bakshi Part 1“.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is American-Pop-Poster-538x1024.jpg — American Pop (1981)

After The Lord of the Rings, Ralph Bakshi wanted to create another original film and approached Columbia Pictures to finance his next film. After securing the deal, Ralph set about making a film that would incorporate a large number of songs into a story that stretched across multiple generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family. Similar to The Lord of the Rings, American Pop used a lot of rotoscoping to create the animation although it also incorporated other techniques such as live-action and archival footage as well. The film was ultimately successful when it was released in 1981, doing well at the box office and being warmly received.

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